She breathed deeply and plunged into the square. There were immediate looks of recognition, elbow jabs and points, comments whispered into others’ ears at her presence. Smiling, hands fisted at her sides, she made the decision to ignore and simply enjoy the time outside the lighthouse.
Before the Romans came, I would never have believed I could find comfort in a crowd.
The agora of Alexandria was the finest in the world. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of stalls lined the streets, with a central square reserved for philosophers and teachers to expound their theories.
She pushed through the first thronged street and lingered at tables of golden olive oils, bleached white linens, and delicate blown glassware in a rainbow of colors. The scent of Arabian perfumes and spices from India tickled her nose and drew her on. She stopped to argue with a fat salt merchant, whose valuable store had come all the way across the Western Desert from the mines of Mali. She directed him to send a mina weight to the lighthouse, then pulled two drachmas from a pouch and thrust the money at him.
He laughed. “Do you think I drag the salt across the desert on my own back, mistress? There are many others to pay along the way!”
“That is no excuse to rob me.”
“Rob you! It is you who robs my children. My five small children who will have nothing to eat!”
She pointed at his gut, bulging beneath his himation. “Perhaps you should share.”
“Oh!” He threw his hands into the air. “Now you will insult me? Is this how you think to find a fair price?”
She pulled a few more obols from her pouch. “There. Buy a goat for your five hungry children.”
He waved both hands and shook his head. “I cannot do it to them. Not at such a price.”
Sophia shrugged and looked over his head toward the next street. “Fine. I think there is another salt merchant who does not have so many children.” She edged away from the table.
“Mistress! You leave me a poorer man than you found me, but I must sell all of this today before I leave on a long journey. It is your good fortune that I am forced to do this. Three drachmas.”
Sophia pulled the remaining coins from her pouch and dropped them in his palm. “Delivered to the lighthouse by the end of the day.” The fat man lowered his head, as though she had beaten the salt from him rather than paid him a handsome price.
She moved on, into the small section reserved for the thriving Alexandrian gem trade. Emeralds, amethysts, topaz and onyx—they were all mined here in Egypt and then transformed into gorgeous cameos, carved ornaments and jewelry. Sophia slowed at the table of one merchant and ran her fingers over a stunning necklace of finely worked gold and tiny purple amethysts. She touched her own neck with the other hand and briefly wondered. But then her eyes drifted to her brown tunic and she drew her fingers away from the piece.
Behind her, a man much taller than she jostled close and bumped her. She turned a scathing look on him, and he quickly looked away.
It was time to move on.
She repeated the scene with the salt merchant several more times, arguing over a box of Indian cinnamon that she knew Sosigenes would appreciate sprinkled on his fruit, and insisting on the finest cut of goose at a reasonable price.
Twice more she turned to find the tall Greek nearby, and she studied his features, searching for recognition. Had Ares sent a servant to watch her? But he was not dressed as a servant, and she was certain he was unknown to her.
The crowd was thickening now. The tumult of merchants haggling with customers, the bleats and snorts of animals, and even the random singing that erupted from various quarters in the agora, mingled to create a chaos that pressed against her. It was as though the Great Harbor had tipped all its many merchant ships on end, pouring their luxuries into the agora for all of Alexandria to paw over. She put her fingers to her temples and tried to take a fresh breath, free of the jumble of scents. The uncommon moisture in the air seemed to hold the odors down with a heavy hand.
In the next street, Sophia passed by the stacks of fragrant cedarwood from Lebanon and stopped on a whim beside a table draped with leopard skins.
He is still there.
The lanky Greek. He had not anticipated her sudden stop beside the skins. When she turned to face him, he darted between a table laid with colorful silk from the Far East, and one with Indian cotton.
A prick of fear needled her. If Ares had sent the man, would he have worked so hard to remain unnoticed? She ran a hand absently over the leopard skin, her eyes still trained toward the adjoining tables. He seemed to be watching her from the edge of his vision.
Enough purchases for today.
She smiled at the skins merchant, shook her head, and moved away, ignoring his calls of protest. She forced her way through the crush of people, cringing at the touch of those she brushed against. I should never have left the lighthouse.
The agora gave way, finally, and she was free. But in the lonely street beyond she felt vulnerable and exposed. She hurried down the granite way, keeping close to the columned porticos and open shops.
At the entrance of a narrow alley, an arm swept around her waist, and a voice rasped at her ear. “Not so fast.”
She tried to pry the arm from her body. She twisted her head, though she knew exactly who held her. His chin was unshaven, his hair longish and greasy. Wrapped in his embrace, she smelled the sea and fish and an odor she couldn’t identify.
“Let me go!” She tried to wriggle from his grasp.
Her attacker laughed, a quiet growl, then yanked her sideways off her feet and dragged her into the alley.
Only the kitchen doors of estates opened to the narrow space. Garbage lined the buildings. Sophia tried to catch her breath. She felt her neck grow damp with fear. “What do you want?”
He pushed her against one of the stone walls. He released his grip on her waist, then used the arm to brace against her throat, and leaned in close. His breath stank, and he grazed her cheek with his lips. She slapped at his face.
So many young and beautiful women about. Why would he choose me?
She clawed at the arm that pressed her throat, then tried to bite it.
He pushed her chin backward. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you, Keeper?”
She stopped struggling, stunned.
“Days outside that lighthouse. I was beginning to think you would never show your face.”
Sophia reached for his arm again, tried to ease the pressure. The stone at her back felt cold, unrelenting. “What do you want?” she asked again. His arm seemed made of the ebony she’d seen in the market.
“Yes, I want something. Something you can tell me where to find.”
“I have only a small amount of money.” She fumbled at her waist to uncover her pouch.
He pressed her throat harder, and she cried out. She tried to turn her head, to see if anyone else walked the alley. “Release me!” But the words were only a croak with his arm against her voice, and she knew no one inside the homes would hear.
“Keep your money. I want the scholar.”
If she hadn’t been terrified, Sophia would have laughed. “What could you want—”
He used his free hand to grip her side, digging sharp fingers. “Just tell me where the old man is. Sosigenes.”
Sophia blinked away the pain and lifted her chin. “He can be of no interest to you. He has no money of his own and he has not yet invented a way to make peasants smell like something other than dead fish.” Her voice shook at the end of the sarcasm, but she did not flinch.
His eyes flashed and he bent to place his cheek against hers. His body pressed against the length of her own. She felt the scratch of his beard, coarse sand rubbed on tender skin. His fingers disappeared from her side but were back again in a moment, this time at her throat. She caught the flash of silver.
“He gave me leave to kill you if I must. ‘At all cost, bring the scholar.’ ” A knife point tickled just under her chin. “If you will not help
me, I have no use for you.”
The fear she had felt first spark in the agora bloomed into terror. She had nothing more than words to defend herself, and they would not protect her against a knife. She kicked at his shins and tried to scream. He pressed the cold blade closer.
“Who wants him?” she whispered. “You must tell me that before I give you anything.” Does he know I merely stall?
The sharp point traced circles under her chin, and something like regret passed over the man’s features. “That is none of your concern. And I will not listen to any demands from you. Tell me where he is. Now!”
She had always suspected that her patronage of the Museum and its scholars would one day make her a target of someone’s ill-will. Wherever there was progress, there would be those who oppose it, who fear it.
But this is not about fear. This is about power.
Someone had discovered what Sosigenes was creating, had discovered Kallias’s legacy, and had come to seize the power for himself.
She could not protect Sosigenes if she were dead. But she could not tell this brute the truth. She floundered, with growing panic, for a suitable lie.
And the tip of the knife began a slow slice along her jawline.
Twenty-One
In the grayness of the day, Bellus longed for Rome. Though his days in the countryside of Italy were most often sunkissed, there were still drizzly days when the fire beckoned one to draw close and spend the time with books, with staring into the flames in contemplation.
But the lighthouse afforded no such luxury to him, and so the heavy clouds and dim corridors weighed on his spirit and eventually drove him outdoors.
He walked, wandering toward the city, uncaring if he was caught in a downpour. Eventually he found the agora and enjoyed a walk through. When he came upon Capaneus, a slave he recognized from the lighthouse, lounging beside an empty horse-drawn cart at the edge of the agora, he inquired as to his errand.
Capaneus jabbed a thumb toward the center of the agora. “She is shopping today.”
Bellus raised his eyebrows and followed the man’s thumb. “I did not realize she came to the agora herself.”
Capaneus barked a laugh. “Never does.” He pointed upward. “Ill-favored sky. It drives people mad.”
Bellus smiled his agreement and waved farewell.
What kind of merchant would draw Sophia?
He wandered back through the stalls, searching for a shorthaired woman among the mix of peasants and nobility.
He soon gave up. The agora churned with people, making his task impossible. He escaped from the central crowd and edged along the street, where vendors stayed in their shops, hoping to capitalize on the traffic to and from the market.
Bellus marveled again at the grid-like plan of the city, laid out so precisely by Alexander’s men three hundred years earlier. Did he have any idea what he began?
Even the alleys ran straight from the streets, and Bellus glanced down each he passed, idle curiosity urging him on.
A woman’s cry halfway down one alley arrested his progress.
A Greek, peasant from his dress, held someone against the wall. He assumed it was the woman whom he had heard. He hesitated, unwilling to get involved in a domestic argument.
But something about the conflict drew him farther into the alley.
The woman turned her head to him.
On the heels of startled recognition, blood rushed to his head and pounded in his ears.
Sophia!
She turned back to her attacker quickly, without a flicker to betray his presence.
Good woman.
Years of training took over. He moved forward on soundless feet, and his arms hardened as though iron flowed into them. His pugio found its way into his hand, an extension of his arm.
He was behind the Greek in a moment. He snaked an arm between them and gripped the man’s forehead with his palm. The Greek’s hair was greasy under his hand. Sophia’s eyes were on Bellus, dark and wide with a vulnerable fear he had never seen. A surge of anger flowed through him. The Greek stabbed blindly backward with a knife, trying to strike Bellus. In one quick motion he pulled the man’s head backward, saw the target vein pound perfectly in the villain’s knobby throat, and brought his dagger across it in a soundless, smooth slice.
The man stiffened. A gurgle sounded in his throat, mingled with Sophia’s cry. And then he fell at Bellus’s feet with a satisfactory thud, like a poor man’s skinny goat offered for sacrifice.
Sophia’s knees buckled, and Bellus reached to catch her, dropping the pugio to avoid another injury. A scrawny cat ran through the alley past their feet.
And then he saw the blood. At first he thought her attacker’s blood had sprayed on her, but it ran too heavy down her throat, and spread across the neckline of her tunic like a petal-torn red rose.
“Sophia!”
Her eyes were open, but she was silent.
He bent and retrieved his pugio, then lifted her into his arms and strode from the alley. He found Capaneus where he had left him, picking meat off the leg of some bird.
The slave jumped up, eyes wide.
Bellus climbed onto the cart, placed Sophia on the floor at his feet, and grabbed the reins. He said nothing to Capaneus, who stood open-mouthed, simply yelled to the horse, which took off at a trot.
The reins were tight and coarse against his hand. When he had navigated through the worst of the crowds, he glanced down at Sophia. Her throat still bled. He did not think it was fatal, but his chest felt constricted nonetheless. “Can you press your chitôn against the wound, Sophia?”
She was silent still, but unwrapped the fabric from her shoulder and held it against her chin.
The sky opened then, sending the first heavy drops like scattered arrows, then a curtain of water that drenched them in moments. The entire city seemed sheeted in gray, and they swam alone through the fog.
Another glance at Sophia. She had lifted her face to the rain, as though to let it wash away the attack. Her chitôn grew pink with watered blood, and she blinked away the rain that assaulted her eyes.
He snapped the reins against the horse’s flank and took a corner so sharply they nearly toppled.
Across the heptastadion, empty of all travelers and beaten with angry waves, and then past the Pharos village and the short causeway that led to the lighthouse. He steered carefully around ruts and stones and drew the cart up close to the entryway.
A moment later she was in his arms again, in the front hall of the Base.
Ares rushed to them. “What have you done?” He reached for Sophia. Bellus turned away, putting himself between the servant and Sophia.
“She has been attacked. Light a fire in her chambers and bring bandages.”
A look of resentment flashed in Ares’s eyes and he glanced at Sophia, as if to get different instructions. But the woman was silent in Bellus’s arms, huddled against his own pounding chest.
Ares hurried ahead of them, through the inner courtyard and up the ramp.
Halfway to her chambers, Sophia stirred in his arms. “I can walk,” she whispered. “Put me down.”
“I will not.”
“It is too far.”
“I have carried armor heavier than you for miles across the battlefield. Be quiet.”
Amazingly, she was.
By the time they reached Sophia’s private chamber, a fire surged at the side of the room and Ares had brought a basin of water and clean rags.
Bellus tried to lay her on the white-cushioned couches, but she resisted. “On the floor,” she said. “By the fire.”
He glanced at Ares, who then flew to the bed in the adjoining chamber, ripped a covering from it, and returned. With a flick of his wrists, he snapped the royal blue fabric taut and let it float to the floor beside the fire. Bellus kneeled and laid Sophia on it, and she exhaled as though relieved, though whether to be in her room or out of his arms, he wasn’t sure.
Ares hovered.
“We a
re fine, Ares,” Bellus said, still kneeling at her side.
“That will be all.”
The servant’s feet didn’t move. Bellus looked upward into his eyes and saw a mix of anger and something more. Jealousy?
Their eyes connected for only a moment, then Ares apparently remembered his place and backed from the room.
“The boy cares for you very much,” Bellus said to Sophia as he reached for one of the rags Ares had left.
Her voice was low. “He hasn’t known a mother for many years.”
She lay on her back, and Bellus knew the bedcovering gave little relief from the hard floor. “Let me move you to the couch.” He glanced to the next chamber. “Or the bed.”
“No.” The word was sharp. “No, this is fine.”
Bellus left her for a moment to retrieve small cushions from the bedchamber. He was there only a moment, but the femininity of the room, with its rich fabrics enveloping the bed and ornately carved furniture, surprised him.
He propped a cushion under Sophia’s head and then dipped the rag into the basin of clear water and wrung it out. “What happened? Who was that?”
Sophia swallowed. “I don’t know. He wanted money, I suppose. I am often recognized when I go out.”
Bellus stroked the cloth across her throat, taking care not to get near the wound until he could assess it. The rag left a wet streak across her bloody throat. He wiped again, gently. The rag turned pink in his hand as he washed the blood from her neck and then her upper chest. She stilled beneath his hand, her eyes on him. He could see her pulse, pounding in her neck. Oddly, he was aware of his own beating heart as well, which seemed to speed faster here than it had in the street with her attacker.
Battles I know. Women, I do not.
The fire snapped beside them, and she jumped. Bellus touched her arm with his free hand. “Lie still.”
He bent closer and leaned his head to the side until it nearly rested on her belly, to examine the cut. With a clean rag, he washed the blood from it. It had stopped bleeding, and he was careful not to reopen it. She trembled a little as he cleaned it, and he thought again of the petals of a flower, bruised and crushed.
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